Grave For Monsters
by Puckk
Summary: Dark AU. After the drugs, the silence and the white walls, Sophie, and the last remnants of his self pity, he finds himself back where he started. He feels no different


Grave For Monsters

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He doesn't leave the house until they're all gone, every last one of them. They ask time and again if he's all right. _"Mr. Jane? Sir? Are you sure you want to stay here?" _He's sure. They return day after day and he nods that he's _all right, of course. I just need some time. I'll be fine. _In some corner of his mind he's aware the shrink will be back, knows he hasn't escaped that torture but those thoughts are thin and frail and when he grabs for them, they disintegrate. When he hears the door close at last, so distant, he feels nothing.

It's maddening, his thoughts. He can't even begin to comprehend what's going on, but his mind is trying its hardest to dig through the fog, picking apart those tiny little signs he notices without effort, magnifying them, forcing them into focus in his mind. He fights it until he can't, and then he screams, claws at the ground, his hair, pounds his fists into soft, stained carpet, cries and cries and feels nothing but empty. The emotions don't leave, but they're pressed deep into his body, into his pores. He becomes them and in essence, he becomes blank. The sum of all things is nothing.

He is nothing. Never has he been more sure of this.

Later he passes out on the bed, beneath a brilliant red smile and the ghosts of his life.

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After the drugs, the silence and the white walls, Sophie, and the last remnants of his self pity, he finds himself back where he started. He feels no different. He is a shell containing nothing but the flames of vengeance, only the energy to complete his task and then rest.

He knows what he has to do and exactly how to go about it. It's all a big mass of threads woven together into the solution. Into the end. And he can see it more clearly without emotions. They had returned to him within the silence of the hospital but he knows how to push them back, knows how to bury them within himself.

He stands on the porch, dark clouds gathering in an otherwise eggshell blue sky, and waits for the mail. His neighbours are few but the ones that deign to cross paths with him give little sympathetic smiles and sheepish waves. He smiles and it works, they respond in kind, but he is not the one smiling. He is the one wondering if any of these people saw Red John. If any of them were witnesses, bystanders. They've all been questioned, but not by him. He doesn't trust anyone but himself to deal with this.

The mail carrier comes and hands the mail right to him. He smiles, suggests that the carrier come in, have a cup of tea. The man is nervous, awkward, but the way he acts suggests he owes something to Jane, feels guilt over something. The man shrugs and mentions how he still has _the rest of the street to do, and then Willow St. And those two last houses on Pinecrest Ave._ but Jane won't take no for an answer. The knife is in his back before Jane even closes the door behind the falling, uniformed body. It's perfect, the man doesn't even flinch, doesn't call out. Just the soft gasp and slick noises as Jane pulls out the knife and slides it into the nape of his neck. So simple, it is.

He wonders what Red John felt as he killed, each person's death a little more horrific. Doesn't allow himself to consider how he felt when he killed his wife, when he slaughtered his baby, violent and brutal and angry. That's not how Jane does things. He needs this, this feeling of life in his hands, this control, this knowledge that he has the plan that will bring about absolute success. But he doesn't need the theatrics, not anymore. It's easy to cover up such a deed. Already it's started to rain and his neighbours have taken refuge in their houses. He finishes delivering the mail, easily disposes of the body and cleans up whatever mess has been left.

It's not quite as well done as he'd planned, but he knows how to handle things now that he's completed his first. _Such a fast learner_ his teachers always used to say.

Well, no reason to prove them wrong now.

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The police come to him a few days later. _We've been canvassing the whole neighbourhood _they explain, _we know it's a tough time for you but we just need to ask you some questions_. Of course, of course, ask away. _Your whereabouts, did you hear anything unusual, when did you receive your mail_. Etcetera, etcetera.

I have no idea, officer. That's horrible!

It's so easy to be believable, because they want to believe. It's so much easier to not exist than to even attempt some pathetic half-life. The policeman and his partner have a few more questions, even more apologies, and then they are leaving, completely unsuspecting.

He says his goodbyes, offers his condolences, and nothing more. Thinks about the second body he's already completed (even easier the second time around) waiting to be transported, waiting to be hidden and disposed of.

Goodbye, officers. And good luck.

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A few months later he returns to his home one day from grocery shopping to find a note on his kitchen table, stuck in place by the condensation ring from a glass half full of red liquid. He smiles.

Without haste he sets down his groceries, brushes his hands on his pants, pulls the glass away from the note and reads. A hint, a sign. Red John knows what he's doing, wants a competition, wants to make Jane feel the pain. He is only a man, this Red John, but soon he won't even be that. Jane can sense the time coming closer with each last breath of those that he kills. He'll do whatever he has to do, just as he always knew he would.

Putting the thoughts further back in his mind, he picks up his groceries one by one and places them in various cabinets, eats mechanically, and lies on the empty mattress in the empty room. The smile above him is a constant reminder and he relishes it for it keeps his focus on what's important. Killing Red John.

His last thought before falling asleep is that he's spent the entire day without a single thought for his family.

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When he finally meets Red John again, in a house just down the street, he is neither surprised nor anxious. He feels nothing. He has no expectations, simply the acceptance that this is the final act he requires. This is his salvation and his end and it's been written since the day he saw that note and knew.

Red John is full of anger and insults, tries to get a rise out of him, lashes out and plays all those tricks that Jane is so accustomed to. Jane can feel the tender anger, hurt, desolation all inside him. Can see his wife's eyes, feel his child in his arms, just for a minute. It's miraculous, these things he had forgotten. But it's a mistake and a distraction, if only for a minute. That minute is all it takes.

Instantly he is choking, gasping, desperate. He feels all those emotions rise up from where they had been dormant, forced down, pressed against his ribs until he could ignore them. In this moment they will not be ignored and he screams as he fights for a second more of life; wild, thrashing and flailing, mindless with desperation. It won't end like this.

Red John pulls away, ever so slightly, startled by this outburst. Jane seizes the opportunity, his skills rise up to the challenge and it is so fast, _so fast_ and then it's done. Red John is bleeding out at his feet. Jane takes the knife he'd kept hidden in belt, knowing the man would never check, and starts to take him apart piece by piece. Red John is noisy, arrogant to the end, but Jane knows what he's doing and knows it has to be done. And so it is.

He can feel the emotions dissipating. Not hiding as they were previously, but disappearing as though they'd never been. He knows with some vague sense of awareness that he has become a monster. But that's what was necessary. The only way to kill monsters, as they say.

When he's done he leaves. Walks out, ever so casually, and returns to his house. There are sirens already on the way and he knows he's covered in blood but he's already planned the way back to his house. Already knows the amount of time it will take for the police to show up, always knew how long it would take the neighbours to get over their initial concerns of being intrusive and finally call 911.

He has roughly five minutes before they realize what happened, see his blood trail and manage to get to his house. More than enough time for all that he needs to do. He can feel his life draining out already. He's injured from his battle with Red John but not fatally so. No, his life was his purpose and now that his purpose is complete, there is no need to be alive.

The mattress is just as empty as it usually is but this time he can feel her here, remembers her as if she were here. He allows himself this one time. He feels the sweet soft little child that crawled up between them because she couldn't sleep alone. He feels the warm skin of his wife, his beautiful wife and his baby girl and holds her close, smells her hair, kisses her head and fades into nothing.

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They find him with a knife in his chest, the tiniest smile on his face, and tear tracks on his cheeks. _Monster_ some of them say. _Good for him_ others think. But it doesn't matter. Another closed case, two more killers that have killed themselves.

Sophie shakes her head at his funeral, copy of the paper clutched in her hand. The police had censored the story for the public, the funeral was full of people. _If only they knew_ she thought _that this is just another grave for a monster_. She swallows down her mixture of sorrow and frustration, of pity and defeat before turning away and back to her life.

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End file.
